Get Your Old-Fashioned Doughnuts Fix From This Pop-Up

When Alexander Vesenka and his partner, Gabby Seligman, decided to make the move from Atlanta to Denver two years ago, they brought along their passion for making doughnuts.

The two launched Bonuts Doughnuts (named for their four-legged companion) as a pandemic-era pop-up in Atlanta, and now it's making waves in the Mile High City.

"I've been a baker, professionally, for many years," says Vesenka, who is originally from Maine. "I worked at a bread bakery in college and just really developed a passion for baking and bread. I feel like bread is something we actually need, like, always. So that's a special place for me."

After college, Vesenka moved to Boston and landed a job at a doughnut shop, where he fell in love with the craft. "I loved a lot of it, but also would love to have changed some of it both in how the business was run and the quality of the doughnuts," he says.

Not long after, he and Seligman found themselves living in Atlanta, and when the pandemic hit, Vesenka saw an opportunity to put his doughnut expertise to the test. "Like many people, I was looking for something else to do," he recalls. "I started doing a pop-up at local coffee shops in Atlanta for doughnuts, thinking, I kind of know how to make a lot of these at one time, so let's put my own spin on it."
The doughnuts were a hit in Atlanta, but in 2022, Seligman landed a teaching job in Denver, and the couple decided to make the move west. "Gabby's whole family is here, and it's certainly nice to be around family," Vesenka notes. "I decided to follow [her to Denver] and was able to pretty quickly start up Bonuts again. ... It took us probably about four or five months to get up and running."

The first Bonuts pop-up took place at Cohesion Brewery. "In the past eight months, we've made a bunch more connections, and the connections with local businesses is huge," Vesenka says. Now it typically pops up at various locations such as Novo Coffee, Pablo's Coffee and Long Table Brewhouse three to four times a month.

"As far as I know, I follow the kind of West Coast version of doughnuts, which is what Dunkin Donuts kind of riffed off of," Vesenka explains. "It's an old-fashioned or cake doughnut, which is fried lower and slower for a longer time so you get that crispy, crackly edge; a raised doughnut, which are the yeasted squishy ones; and then a cruller, which is like a fried popover, egg-based doughnut."

Because doughnuts are all about texture for Vesenka, Bonuts Doughnuts always has a vanilla and chocolate old-fashioned on its menu. "I've always enjoyed these styles of doughnuts and found that I could never find a good old-fashioned doughnut, especially here in Denver, in my opinion," he says.

Other flavors rotate depending on the season and "with just what I'm feeling," Vesenka says. "I like to switch up and keep things as simple as possible while also doing something that's a little different than your standard doughnut shop fare."

One of the options that regularly makes an appearance is based on his experience growing up in Maine and eating whoopie pies. "It's the same chocolate old-fashioned that I make all the time, sliced in half with buttercream in the middle and then flaky sea salt on top. It's a lot," he admits. "It's probably a shareable doughnut, but it's pretty delicious."

As for future plans for a possible bakery, Vesenka says, "I'm just living off the enjoyment of doing these pop-ups and having a place that I get to see this awesome community and work with local business. We're kind of just going month to month right now and trying to make the best product I can."

For a taste of Bonuts Doughnuts, follow it on Instagram @bonutsdoughnuts where it typically posts its weekly location and menu on Mondays.